I have heard (you know, “around”) that some manufacturers make products specifically for WalMart. Perhaps to WalMart’s specifications. Not sure, I’m guessing.
The old toaster oven I had bought six years ago finally refused to make toast anymore and at the urging of my live-in GF I decided to get an actual toaster rather than a toaster oven. So I head out to my local WalMart to check out the selection of toasters with the idea that if I didn’t find one I liked there was a Target just across the hiway.
Sure enough they had a dozen or so lined up on a shelf. Some as cheap as eight to nine bucks. Knowing what kind of service I would get out of a toaster that, ahem… inexpensive, I kept looking. I finally settled on a nice looking GE four slice toaster for about $37.
Once home and unpacked I decide my lunch has to (of course) feature toast. So I grab a couple of slices from my loaf of Kirkland multigrain bread and… it doesn’t fit, ANNOYED!
Seems that the bread is about 5″ wide. Exactly the same width (or a little wider) than the slot in the toaster. Not to be outwitted by a forty dollar toaster I stick the bread in sideways. About a third of the slice sticks out of the toaster. Grrr.
Once done with lunch, the toaster is packed back up and returned to WalMart, where the nice lady at the returns counter is amazed and amused that my toast is to big to fit in the toaster. But my money is cheerfully refunded and I am on my way to Target.
Upon reaching the “Small Electrics” section of kitchenware I unfurl my handy-dandy tape measure and start measuring, because… well because I am that kind of a guy. All of the single slot toasters are 5 1/4″ and the long slot toasters are not quite 10 1/2″. All of them.
I grab a nice looking toaster from Oster for about forty bucks and am happily on my way.
In the end I get a nicer looking long slot toaster that will hold four slices of bread for a couple of bucks more than the four slice toaster at WalMart thad didn’t work with the bread I usually buy.
But what sticks in my craw, and what will probably prevent me from shopping at WalMart ever again is my deep suspicion that WalMart chintzes out on some of the stuff in their store to seem to have lower prices for the same stuff you see elsewhere. When in fact you are actually getting inferior merchandise, for cheaper prices.
But then I could be wrong, you never know.